“ROWAC’s presence here has only one objective, and that is to delay the Suit’s advance until the base has been evacuated. And we’re doing that because we are supremely aware of its capabilities. If we were to give it less than our very best, it would simply swat us aside and keep on advancing, and Lograin just can’t afford that, can it?”
“No, sir.”
“I’ve organized an evacuation for you but it’s going to take a while. The rovers have been tasked for actions other than evac, and so I expect they’ll only be free to get you out once they’ve fulfilled their other obligations. In the meantime you stick with us, understood?”
“Yes, sir.” They all answered quietly.
Before long the group was once more on the move, although the journey proved to be a short one. The command section, their compliment of praetorians and the ragged cadets moved eastwards half a kilometer, where they reformed at the base of 3rd company’s left flank. There was hardly any need to dig in, their new position being located precisely where Toni and his crew had come upon the frontline less than an hour before. As the captain personally marked where he expected the praetorians to establish their positions, Toni cautiously approached the lieutenant.
“Sir. May I ask why you’re so worried about this? Is it really such a bad plan?”
The lieutenant sighed in annoyance. He peered at Toni for a moment, measuring him, and then he shrugged and answered.
“No. The plan isn’t bad. Except for the fact that the captain always insists on being where the action is. And that means being where his praetorian guards are. His intention is to try and funnel an enemy Suit right against our company’s most heavily armed and armored elements. The problem is that, if it works, that means he’ll be directing the enemy to his own position! And if the praetorians don’t stop the Suit, chances are good we’ll be fried once it punches through the line.”
“We can fight, sir.”
The lieutenant sighed once more.
“Fighting is for bots, cadet. I’m not so sure mankind has any place left on a battlefield. I’m more certain now after what happened to your outfit.”
“Sir, the enemy’s got men driving their Suits. I know that for a fact –”
“You don’t have their Suits! You don’t even have your own Suits! All you’ve got is that rifle and a few grenades. So what’s going to happen is –”
“Leslie, where the fuck is Murata?”
The lieutenant sighed yet again and turned his attention to the captain.
“Sir, my name is Lieutenant Stevenson. And Captain Murata isn’t going to be with his praetorians. His bots are already emplaced where you wanted them, but the captain’s going to find a safer spot for his command and equipment.”
“Pussy ...” the captain remarked with a twisted smile.
Toni couldn’t help but smile at the captain.
“The captain’s wasted in ROWAC. He should have been light infantry.” He remarked in an undertone.
“He was a footman before he went to Officers’ School.” The lieutenant replied, as if agreeing that all footmen were insane.
The praetorians began to hiss once more and when Toni remarked about it, the lieutenant explained.
“It may sound like a hiss to your ears but that’s actually one of the ways the bots communicate. They’re equipped to communicate by long-wave radio, short-wave radio, luminous signals, hand codes and audio comms. Since we didn’t want any comm. intercepted or jammed, and since the bots were mostly out of each others’ sight due to terrain, the only remaining solution was audio comms. They were even communicating when you boys were closing in on them. You heard them as birds chirping, but there was a cipher hidden in the sound. The Suit probably won’t know we’re out there until before the festivities begin. The way the captain’s organized things, the better part of two companies will have an opportunity to engage the Unmil in the first moments of battle. And it won’t be able to block the comms like it did with your drivers.”
“Sorry, sir, but I don’t think that will be enough.”
“Seventeen anti-armor teams per company. Two companies. Four RPGs per two-bot team. That’s a hundred and thirty six RPGs, each with an explosive warhead weighing over twelve kilo-mass. Such an assault could take out most of the ASC under ideal conditions. Either way you boys shouldn’t be here by then. Just keep to our rear, jump on the rovers when they arrive and don’t look back.”
The lieutenant returned to his duties, leaving Toni to ponder on the matter. They’re going to die in that foxhole, the stranger nonchalantly declared, you’ve got your own battle ahead of you, and you have precious few weapons with which to fight it.
Toni knew what he was talking about. The captain’s words had finally begun to sink in regarding his defense of the order of arrest, and he realized that all he had was his word against Ian’s. The thought of what he was going to have to deal with in the future made him want to jump into the trenches to fight alongside the bots. They at least weren’t prone to bushwhacking or betrayal. A sudden hissing along the line, however, made him wonder about that.
“Unknown contact audible in the forest,” Lieutenant Stevenson whispered as they huddled around the equipment, “Heading is what we expected, it’s following the MEWAC trail.”
“Is it in the funnel yet?” The captain asked. He was staring thoughtfully towards the south-east.
“It’s in, but just barely,” the lieutenant answered.
“We wait ...” the captain decided.
A full minute passed before the captain asked again. His lieutenant answered.
“It’s in but not yet midway. The Unmil is either being careful, or it suspects something.”
“Tell Murata to begin to carefully close the end of his side of the funnel. Do the same with ours.”
Thirty seconds later the lieutenant began to tense up.
“Sir, the Unmil has halted. I’m stopping my bots.”
Another minute passed and only the hissing could be heard. It seemed so loud to Toni’s ears that he wondered if it was the noise that was giving them away.
“Unmil is on the move again. Moving slowly. Heading straight towards us. Sir, it’s half a click away and closing. Do we assault now?”
“Are you mad?” the captain retorted irritably, “We want the fucker to come here, where we’ve concentrated our RPGs. Let him come. Keep closing the other end of the funnel. Box him in.”
Another minute passed and the lieutenant gestured silently to the cadets to get ready to move at any moment. Turning to his captain, the lieutenant whispered.
“You’re going to get what you want. The Unmil is less than two hundred meters away and closing. The funnel is closed and the contact is boxed in. There are confirmed visuals by emplaced anti-armor teams. Now, sir?”
After a moment’s pause the captain looked rearwards. There was no longer a smile on his face, only that broad frown. Tensely he gave the signal for the cadets to retreat before returning his gaze to the south-east.
“Engage the fucker.” He ordered.
The cadets did not retreat but watched silently instead, spellbound by the tension of the moment. A silent order passed from the lieutenant to his bots in a hissing wave, and then the forest suddenly became alive with screeching missiles.
Deafening concussions rocked the woods, waking it violently from its slumber as belching fumes began to ascend the sky. The detonations were immediately followed by the roar of machineguns, which increased in number and intensity until all Toni could hear was a screaming, popping static. The static began to be punctuated by ever more frequent detonations as the sounds of battle began to reach their peak.
“What exactly are we still doing here?” Hannah shouted into his ears.
He thought about that for a moment, and it became clear to him that they urgently needed to be someplace else. There was no need to answer. Hannah grabbed Ian and Toni grabbed Sueli, and the remnants of LOGIS set of at a run to their north-east, following once more wha
t remained of MEWAC’s signs of passage. Toni risked a glance behind and saw the vegetation before Venter’s position being struck by a laser pulse, its defenders hastily exiting their foxhole as smoke and fire nearly overwhelmed them.
More concussions rocked the forest, their shockwaves knocking flat anything not attached to the ground, and Toni suddenly found himself lying there, the deafening static sound of gunfire still screaming into his ears. The enemy Suit came within sight, and it sauntered over the forest floor with kneepads well-bent and frame in reduced silhouette, its armor sparking and glinting as myriad small-caliber projectiles struck their target.
The Suit’s oculars laser glimmered, it’s beam cutting up the landscape like a luminous scalpel. Its helm turned towards him and that laser flashed once more, the ground shooting up dirt wherever the beam touched, bark and limb and tree bursting into flames and subsiding to the earth. The kicked-up dust enshrouded him, cloaking his surroundings from the titan’s killing sight, and the screaming static in his ears was overruled by a keening, screeching sound that tore into his heart.
Twisting around where he lay, his eyes fell on Sueli, who rolled over the ground hugging what appeared to be a child by its leg. Clumsily he stood and approached and tried to pry the child from her arms before she smothered it, his mind at odds with what he was seeing, wondering how a civilian could have found its way into the midst of a battlefield. Sueli held on desperately, as if it was her own offspring she held, and once he had pulled one of her arms away, he realized how wrongly he had judged what he was seeing.
It was not a child. It was her own leg she was holding, the member’s boot having somehow been lost, her petite foot jutting out from her embracing arms for the world to see. He stared in horror at the vision, and then his eyes searched downwards until they found the cleanly cauterized stump well above her right knee. Looking behind, he found the sounds of battle receding as bots coursed the terrain in pursuit of their prey, oblivious to the fact that they would also soon be in pieces.
Toni scooped her up, caring not in the least for his injured right arm, and stifled his emotions as he set eyes upon her face. Her face was perfect, except for the utter horror that was stamped there. She cried and shrieked, and there was something animal about the way her eyes blinked at her surroundings. He ran as he held her firmly, and came upon Hannah further down the trail where she had been wrestling with Ian on the ground.
He said nothing to her or to Ian, his expression putting an end to the fight more effectively than any word could have.
They stared at Sueli as she embraced her leg. Blinking back tears, Hannah took out a hypodermic painkiller and injected the drug into her comrade, and the group then set off at a jog down the trail, where the revving of engines had became audible.
Four rovers coursed over the terrain at speed, jumping and careening along almost as if out of control. They rolled to a stop before them and ROWAC’s Command and Services section assessed the state of the group.
“Oh lord ...” was all one of them could say.
Moments later Toni was shoved into the confined flatbed of the rover with a warning to “hold-on tight”, a semi-conscious Sueli still firmly held in his arms. He numbly realized that that was the first time he was holding a woman in his arms.
Pity, the demon inside jested, pity that she’s in pieces and would sell you downriver in a heartbeat for her leg back.
Toni didn’t care if she did, nor would he blame her, for that matter. He rested his head on her chest, feeling the fever-quick beat of her heart against his cheek as he fell off into a deep sleep, heedless of the bouncing rover or the suffering woman, and heedless also of the fact that Ian was for the first time alone, separated from his teammates on a vehicle that was no longer in sight.
*****
“KAISER!” Lippard roared over the loudspeaker, armored footpads pounding over the forest floor as she momentarily ignored her scurrying foes. It was a useless exercise, the deafening noise produced by the surrounding suicidal infantry drowning out her calls.
The question of whether the locals had any fight in them had been answered in capital letters. Her oculars had already been damaged several times, and she suspected that snipers were deliberately aiming for them. The stock of oculars that were stored in her helm was down to two-thirds after less than a minute of battle, with no end in sight to the engagement.
Nothing enraged her more than the sort of tactics she was witnessing at the moment. Whether one called it a human wave attack or a banzai attack, what she saw before her was an almost alien, inhuman commitment to resistance. That fact alone was enough to make her blood boil, but the rage was compounded by the fact that Kaiser had been taken prisoner by the heathens.
And how could he?! How could he allow himself to be captured? Deadhand was dead, a gigantic loss for their team. Kaiser’s Suit was beyond repair, which was perhaps an even greater setback. But if Kaiser were somehow forced to speak, the consequences would be disastrous. They hadn’t yet established themselves at the mines in any way that could counteract their vulnerability in manpower. And yet the Ebony Tower, hermetically sealed and sanitized in its methods of thinking as it was, had decided to forbid any rescue operations.
Which meant absolutely nothing to her. The mobile Suit she currently possessed was thermonuclear powered, her lasers feeding on the very same power source, and only food supply limited her autonomy in any appreciable way.
Several rockets suddenly impacted against her frame, the detonations sending her into the dirt below. The performance sphere cocooned her securely, considerably reducing the force of impact. It was, however, entirely inadequate to shield her pride, and it was there that the fall most injured her.
“Das ist es! JEDER STIRBT!!” She roared, her hoarse voice breaking with the effort.
Planting her footpads securely on the ground, she lowered her center-of-mass and gave her system the appropriate orders. All movements in her field of vision suddenly sprouted bright red reticules, and another larger reticule appeared directly in the center of her field of vision. Turning her head, she centered the large cross over the many smaller crosses, the Suit’s OS making the appropriate calculations and then activating the co-axial laser. That laser, sharing the space inside her helm along with the oculars and ocular replacement equips, had only one purpose: antipersonnel. It cut through the landscape and bodies fell, and Lippard began for the first time to wonder whether her attackers were human at all. Where was the screaming that usually accompanied its use, where were the bodies cut in pieces, and why were so many exploding into flames? It wasn’t their ammunition that was doing that, although she could hear them popping off as the flames enveloped their burning bodies. Some continued to fight as they burned, and she watched, horrified, wondering whether they were under the influence of drugs.
One more flash and, somehow, through all the shots and explosions, Lippard began to hear a wailing, screeching sound, shortly followed by someone shouting. The sounds were music to her ears, and she grinned viciously as she turned her armor towards her enemies’ left flank. The screams slowly became less pronounced as she moved along the trenches and foxholes, cutting and firing her way through the vegetation and all who hid there until she could no longer hear anything at all.
Before long, Lippard moved in silence, except for the impact of projectiles against her frame, the occasional explosion, and the tearing sounds produced by her laser beams against their targets. One particular target died hard, hit below by her pulse-rifle and then seared by her co-axial laser, but it kept on firing as it burned, making no sound. She halted her advance and pulled warrior’s rifle from its hands before picking it up for inspection.
Inside her performance sphere, Lippard’s eyes hardened as she turned it over in her hand, suddenly aware that no amount of crushing force from her gauntlets would be enough to kill it. The creature stared at her unblinkingly as it burned, and it then began to chirp beautifully, as if encased somewhere within its metallic body
a talented songbird sang.
Lifting the obscene creature over her helm, she launched it out into the wilderness, a champion’s throw that would keep it airborne for a few moments at least, flying and singing as it left a charcoal smear across the windy sky.
“KAISER! GET ME OUT OF THIS NIGHTMARE!” She screamed, the loudspeaker of her Suit utterly failing to amplify her words to the volume she felt they deserved. The forest around her smoked and burned, the rising pillars slanting to the north-west as the strengthening wind pushed them. The scurrying figures continued to fire at her, their obsolete projectiles impacting against her armor to make obsolete sounds.
Then the figures began to retreat towards the mountains. Lippard hesitated for a moment, wondering what to do. Then she began to follow them, lost and uncertain, but aware that among those tin cans some humans could be found. The screaming from before made her certain of that. She would find one of them and squeeze his body as she asked some questions. Crushing pain was about the worst pain that one could feel, and she had learned by acquired experience that even the toughest combatant could sing like a canary if enough pressure was applied.
She relished the thought, shivering and smiling as her footpads began to pound the earth once more.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Base Fido, Nature’s Dawn, 20th of June, 2771
Colonel Toramaki Sen observed the display panel and grimaced. His expression was carefully studied and imitated by his subordinates, who surrounded the wide table into which the panel was embedded. Looking briefly south-west through the campaign tent’s mosquito-netted window, the colonel thought about the difficult decisions that lay before him. Grimacing once more, he leaned towards his comms officer.
“The companies currently under attack are to cease offensive action and retreat. This retreat must be slow and organized, and they must head northwards into the Dogspine. Waste this monster’s time! Get it lost in the range’s folds and crevices, because the time we’ve made it lose up until now doesn’t yet justify the losses we’ve suffered.
Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) Page 31
